When Infinia does not work

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Here is the list you should read before talking to us. A list of times when Infinia will not work, and a few times when it does.

You're under $1M ARR

Below about $1M ARR, most companies don't need a CFO. They need a good bookkeeper and a founder who looks at the bank balance every Monday.

The same goes for the CTO seat. If you have one engineer and no paying customers, you don't need someone to set technical strategy. You need a builder. A part-time CTO will write you a roadmap, and you'll still have nobody to ship it.

Come back when the problem is too many things going wrong, not too few things being built.

You need someone to do the work every day

A fractional CFO is not a controller. They won't close your books, chase invoices or run payroll. A fractional CTO is not a lead engineer. They won't be in your codebase 40 hours a week.

If what you're missing is hands, hire hands. A part-time executive owns a number and directs the people who move it. Without those people, there's nobody to direct.

You want someone to agree with you

Some founders want a senior name on the team page and a second signature on the plan they've already made.

That isn't what we introduce. The people we introduce own a number, and owning a number means telling you things you don't want to hear.

For example. Your runway is shorter than you think. Your engineering team isn't slow, your specs are. That pricing change will cost you a quarter.

If you want an advisor who nods, you can find one cheaper than this.

You can afford the full-time hire, and you need it

Past $5M ARR, with a board asking for a full-time CFO before the next raise, or 30 engineers who need daily leadership, a part-time executive is a way of delaying a decision you've already reached.

Hire the full-time person. A good fractional would tell you the same thing, and that's one of the questions we tell founders to ask them: "When would you tell me to replace you with a full-time hire?"

Your runway is measured in weeks

If cash runs out in six weeks, a fractional CFO won't fix it on the first call. Call your investors and your lawyer first. A fractional can help with what comes after, but the first moves in a cash crisis belong to you and your board.

You want a shortlist of 20

We make one introduction. If you want to interview a dozen candidates and compare rate cards, a marketplace will serve you better. We'd rather put one person in front of you who can answer three questions in one sentence each:

You won't give them the keys

A fractional CFO who can't see the bank account, or a CTO who can't read the code, is a consultant writing opinions. If you aren't ready to give someone access and a seat in the board prep, wait until you are.

Where Infinia works best

Here's the founder we're built for.

You're between $1M and $5M ARR. You have a team, customers and a board. And there's one number that's slipping: runway, the metrics your board keeps redoing, or how long it takes your team to ship.

You're doing the senior job yourself at 11pm because the full-time hire is a $250,000 salary you can't justify yet. You know what the number is. You want someone to own it, and you want them to tell you when it's time to replace them with a full-time hire.

That's the job a good fractional CFO or CTO does. They own a number, not a calendar. And the right one leaves you in a position to afford the full-time hire.

If that's you, we'll make one introduction. If it isn't, we'll tell you, and we'll probably tell you what to do instead.